It Hurts To Be In Europe

The title makes my mindset about being out of Japan way worse than it actually is, I think Sweden is great, but what I saw today hurt my soul a little bit.

While I was out and about with my family we came across a game arcade so I thought I'd take a look around and see what games they had.  While I was pleasantly surprised with the collection that they had, the condition of some of the machines upset me a little bit.

The above picture shows two different light gun games with the peripherals just casually thrown on the floor.  It's shit like this that makes the damn things stop working properly and any attempt to play the machines after that just feels like a massive waste of money.

I didn't get a picture but at the entrance there was a light gun game where player 2's gun had been ripped out!

Shit like this is part of the reason why arcades are so dead in the west.  In Japan, people treat the machines with respect 99% of the time so everything works perfectly all the time.  If something does go wonky there are always staff on hand to fix it or call a guy to fix it, but in basically every western country broken machines aren't really a big deal.

People fucking with machines isn't the only reason arcades are dead but it's a big factor.  I don't see why it's so hard for these people who go to arcades around Europe to just not go around breaking things, fucking twats. 

Placing The Blame

Look at that picture, look at it!

I've been saying for a long long time that modern gaming has been getting easier and easier as time goes on.  The above picture explains why things are going that way.

In case there are people who don't know, the above picture is people complaining about being stuck in Super Metroid on the WiiU Virtual Console.  The reason why this picture upsets so many people including myself isn't the fact that people are getting stuck, but they are getting stuck at the simplest most self explanatory bits of the game.

The ones that really get me are the pictures of people complaining about how they can't open certain doors.  It's quite obvious to anyone with a pair of working eyes that normal doors are blue, so you must need some kind of item to get through the red ones but because these people aren't being led by the nose it doesn't occur to them straight away that they have to explore the environment.

Now this picture upsets me but it doesn't make me angry because I really don't know who to blame for this.  At first I want to blame the developers of modern games, for making hand holding ease fests.  Modern games being made far too easy has allowed people like those included in the above picture to believe that gaming is one of those past times that doesn't require much effort to be good at.  While that is true for a lot of newer titles, back in the day you'd have to dedicate yourself to a single game just to be able to complete the damn thing.

But on the other hand I can't just flat out blame developers, because the players are just as much to blame as them.  Gaming has become a mainstream thing, and quite frankly is has started to attract idiots who don't understand and aren't willing to understand why this hobby was so appealing to us long time players in the first place.  Sadly the numbers of these people are quite high so developers start making games for them because, like any company, they want to make money and that is fair.

At the end of the day though, it doesn't really matter who is to blame for games getting easier, the above picture is a good indication for the reason why games are so easy and what's even worse is that because there are many players like this, games are only going to get easier from here on out.

At least we still have people like From Software making shit like Dark Souls, so not all hope is lost.

E3 is coming! Press conference feelings

Almost every year I get hype for E3 but this year I'm finding it hard to find the enthusiasm.

The new consoles have been revealed and there is so much bullshit surrounding them and so many arguing fanboys on the internet that it's kind of killed my excitement.  Don't get me wrong, I'm going to watch it and get just as excited or angry as everyone else, but right now my hype levels are fairly minimal.

That said, I thought I'd just give my current feelings about the major players there (Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony) and sort of what I'm expecting from their press conferences.

NINTENDO!

As far as I know, Nintendo aren't doing a major press conference this year.  This is sort of a good thing because maybe that will allow them to focus on making some actual fucking games for the WiiU that I want to buy so I have an excuse to drop money on one.

SONY!

They sort of got it right with their reveal, at least more right than Microsoft did.  I'm fully expecting that we'll here more social networking bullshit and all that crap but I'm also expecting to see some games and hopefully they'll reveal something that will make me bounce up and down and squeal.  Sony is the company I'm sort of putting all my hopes into this year so if these guys fuck up this conference I'll be rather disappointed.  Also I'm hoping the Vita gets some love at E3 too this year as  Japan has quite a good selection of games on the shelves now but I'm hearing that things are a little bland still in the UK. Hopefully some of those fancy Japanese games get a localisation

MICROSOFT!

Fuck em', quite frankly.  The reveal was such a massive flop that unless they have some of the greatest games I have ever seen in my entire life, I don't care.  We can hope they show some of those exclusives they brushed over but at this point I'm more interested in hearing them justify the post-reveal mess they made with all the news of used game fees and always online.  Right now, I couldn't really give any less fucks about Microsoft or the Xbox One, but there is still a chance the conference may bring me round, although I really doubt it.

Touchdown!

Well I have just landed in Sweden and arrived safely.

I'm now going to pester my family for dinner and sleep the jetlag away, normal posting well resume within the next 24 hours.

Thanks for your patience!

The Final Batch of Japanese Purchases (For Now)

OK! I have no idea what's going on but blogger won't let me embed my own videos anymore.

So I just made a little vlog about the last couple of games I bought in Japan before I am due to leave the country on tuesday, you can check it out at this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln0cosxVXUM

Sorry that I can't embed them like I used to, but I'm sure that one extra click wont kill you.  Enjoy!

If I find a way to fix it, I'll go and fix it at a later date.

A Problem With MOBAs

Forgive the image, it was one I used in a post a long time ago and it was easier just to use it again, this is not a DotA vs LoL post.  Also I know there are people on the net who don't like the term MOBA but I'm sorry, it's just the term I've known for the longest time

Anyway, today I was playing some DotA2 and I was trying to think why this genre more than any if notorious for having such a toxic, aggressive community.  It wasn't too long before I realised the reason why.

You don't even have to think that hard for the main reason why there is a significant chunk of the player bases for these games who just don't seem like very nice people.  A game of DotA or LoL or anything like that tends to take about 35 minutes or so at least (or 20 if it's a quick surrender in LoL) and that's quite a time investment for someone with a busy day.  Even if you're not busy, if you're not having fun, 35 minutes can feel like fucking forever.  So, if there is someone on the team causing the game to go poorly then it's pretty obvious that the reaction to that person is going to be quite negative, their lack of ability basically renders the entire duration of the game a waste of time.

Now what I'm not saying is that people who are new shouldn't play, because that would be just completely fucking stupid, but what is a newbie to do?  Well the common argument is "go play against bots!" but I don't really buy into that.

You see, bot games are all well and good for learning the basic mechanics of the game and how your character of choice works, but let's face it, bots don't play like real people.  You could play bot games all day but when you start going up against real people who do things differently and behaving in different ways then even with all the bot practice in the world you're still going to get rocked.

It's not so bad in a game like Starcraft because that is only 1v1.  If you suck in a game of Starcraft, the only persons time you are wasting is your own.  But if you suck in a MOBA game then you are wasting the time of 4 other people, and people don't like having their time wasted on stuff that isn't fun for them.

Unfortunately though, I don't have a solution because the only real way to get better is to keep practicing in real games so that you can eventually get to the point where you can play effectively.

So really what I'm trying to say is that people who play these kind of games need to chill out and just accept the fact that there are going to be people who suck.  There isn't a need to get mad, because it reflects badly on the community and you're not helping the sucky person get any better.  So help them out, teach them a thing or two about what to do, who knows, maybe something will click with them and you'll be able to turn around a losing game.

If you are on the receiving end of the abuse, don't rise to it, just ask for help because maybe the person yelling at you might calm down when they realise that you are just genuinely new and need pointers.  Calling each other "fucking noobs" all game doesn't help anything now, does it?

I've singled out this genre because it's pretty well known for having ragey arseholes but this goes for other team games too.  Chill out, it's not like that one loss on your record is going to ruin your life and maybe you'll help improve someones gameplay so they can score their own wins further down the line.

Going on Adventures

Well sadly, due to the fact that my current visa is going to expire very soon, I must leave Japan and set forth on new adventures elsewhere for the time being.

What I mean by adventures, at least for the short term, is spending a lot of time on planes and for other personal reasons, doing an absolute shit ton of paper work.

So what does me moving out of Japan mean for the future of Identity Gaming? Absolutely fucking nothing!  The posts will continue, the videos will continue when I get round to it and the charity effort will continue. 

All this move really means is that there may be a period of a couple of days next week where I can't post much.  Then again, there is also the chance where I'm not going to be quite as busy doing things as I expect to be and I'll have plenty of time to keep posting.

Either way, next week, if nothing happens for 2 or 3 days there is no need to freak your shit, once I finish relocating it'll be business as usual.  I'm sort of hoping that with the flight being as long as it is, I'll be able to sink my teeth into some kind of portable game and then talk about it upon touchdown.

Anyway, don't go anywhere and keep supporting me, it means a lot.  Thanks!

The Shit Thickens

I'm sorry, I should not be doing three posts on the same fucking topic, but this shit, THIS FUCKING SHIT, is getting stupid.

Before I left for work today I made a post about how stupid the whole used games fee thing was.  Well disregarding that for a moment, one thing people were happy to hear was that the Xbox One did not require a constant internet connection to function.

Well, for you people with not so great internet who were happy about this, Microsoft have given you the middle finger because while it doesn't need a constant internet connection, it needs to connect at least once every 24 hours or you are locked out of you're fucking games.

Here is the gizmodo article I was linked
http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2013/05/xbox-one-will-work-offline-for-a-day-at-a-time/

Oh my god, it's like Microsoft are just asking people to hate them.

So you may be thinking "who in this day and age doesn't have a constant internet connection?" right? Well it's a lot more than you might think.  There are also a great deal of people with really shaky connections as well, way more than you would expect.

But let's make this personal for a second, how does this affect me?  Well I travel a lot, and constantly moving in and out of new places in new bits of the world means that I don't always have access to the internet right away. 

When I moved to Japan in May of last year, I didn't have an internet connection for about 2 or 3 weeks.  So if I was an Xbox One user, that would be 2 or 3 weeks that I couldn't play my games because the damn thing couldn't call its mum for 5 seconds.

That.  Is some fucking bullshit!  If I shell out top price for a fucking video game, or no fuck that, if I shell out any money at all for a fucking video game, I expect to be able to play the fucking thing.  Why am I not allowed access to games that I fucking paid for just because my I don't have the internet for a while?!  Why is Microsoft staffed almost entirely by complete fucking MORONS?! 

Even Steam doesn't pull this shit and people moan about that all the fucking time.  But at least then if I install a single player game I can fucking play it when I take my laptop to places with no connection.

Fuck you Microsoft, I hope your shitty TV box crashes and burns and the people who made these decisions get forever imprisoned at the bottom of the fucking ocean.

Xbox One Used Game Fee

When there were all these rumours flying around about how the next gen systems will blocked used games I was laughing at people.  I was like "There is no way you can possibly believe that right, that would be the dumbest shit!"

But I have been thoroughly told to shut the fuck up and had my chops slapped about by a news story on IGN with the headline "Microsoft Details Used Game Fees, Installation Requirements"  You can read the thing for yourself just here

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/05/21/xbox-one-may-have-mandatory-game-installs

ARE. YOU. FUCKING. KIDDING. ME?!

What planet doe these people live on?!  At what point in time did anyone think this was a good idea?!

Now, I know what people are going to say when people moan about this.  They are going to be saying stuff like "yeah, but you use Steam and that's basically the same thing!" or "You've not been able to do that with PC gaming for fucking years" etc. etc.

Well guess what shit biscuit, I've NEVER been able to do that with PC games, even before I started using steam.  In the UK, GAME wouldn't take used PC games, and my experience of buying used PC titles from other stores like Gamestation has pretty much ALWAYS ended up in tragedy.

I remember buying fucking Half Life 1, used and the damn thing not having a CD key, then me having to ask my friends dad to give me HIS fucking CD key so I could play the damn thing.  Plus the thing about Steam is that while there are games on there for full price, the vast majority of my steam library has been purchased on the cheap.  Steam make up for the whole 1 account thing by offering shit like Game X + All DLC for like £2.50.

Hell, after selling some items on the Steam Marketplace I picked up Dragon Age: Origins + all the DLC and expansions and what have you FOR NOTHING. £0, $0!  It was paid for totally with TF2 items that I obtained FOR FREE ANYWAY.  Thank you Steam!  I could have bought some other stuff too if I didn't get curious about DotA keys....bad move....

But you know what? I'm not even all that mad.  PS4 seems to be focusing on games and isn't doing it.  Wii U, once it picks up some steam will probably end up pretty strong and THAT doesn't do it.  3DS and Vita don't do it.  So you know what Xbox One? Go and fuck yourself, if you want to implement your little money grubbing used game fee, go ahead, but all you're doing is shooting yourself in the foot and basically handing this entire generation over to Sony and Nintendo.

You have seriously, dun goofed

Identity Gaming Podcast #1: Xbox One

So I thought I'd start something new.

Every month I'll do a podcast type of thingy where I use my voice to give my opinion rather than text.  Today I was talking about the new Xbox One announcement and how I thought the whole thing was fucking terrible.  Everything  else you need is in the video, so here it is!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MM9fXIVDVGk

I'm having to post the link since Blogger won't let me embed the video right now, I'll change that tomorrow morning.

Also sorry about the boring backdrop, I wanted to do this quick while all the info was fresh.

Positive Press

Whenever I talk about gaming press or people in the industry, I think I've been saying nothing but negative things and swear words pretty much 100% of the time.

Now I've had a long day at work so I'm in no mood to be doing great big long rants, so I thought I'd write my own personal little thank you to people who in the industry who aren't huge idiots or money grubbing/attention seeking wankers.

I'd recommend going over to GameTrailers and checking out the Annoyed Gamer and The Final Bosman shows on there.  They are short shows where they stand in front of a camera and talk about games for a bit.  The best part about this whole thing is that they are actually talking about fucking games.  Annoyed Gamer had a bit of a slip up but he acknowledged that and his apology for jumping on a stupid bandwagon was respectable.

That's only naming shows off the top of my head and I know there are plenty of passionate, good people in this industry who want to focus on making good games and discussing said good games.  THESE people need to be at the front of things to help this medium grow and help games get better.

Like I have said many times before, less social justice, money grubbing bullshit and more passionate people with their heads screwed on right just enjoying games.  Then maybe I won't have to get so upset when I'm trying to enjoy this hobby.

Heaven or Hell! Let's Rock!

Back at university, me and my friends would have a couple of go-to fighting games when we wanted to get our competitive gaming going.  Tekken, Street Fighter Alpha and Guilty Gear X2 were those games.  Until Tekken 6 came out we sunk A LOT of time into good old X2.

So after a busy weekend of eating sushi and drinking far too much alcohol, I come home to find there is a trailer for a new Guilty Gear game!  Check it out!

I've not looked too deeply into it, so I don't know what the general consensus is on the trailer, but if you ask me, I'm fucking hyped.  That's all I really have to say about it for now to be honest, just another upcoming game to throw onto the cargo of the hype train.  Hopefully we'll get some more info on it soon and maybe I'll write a bit more about it when I'm not making posts at 2 in the morning...

Not Sure If Hype

Shadow of the Eternals is a game that I should probably be super hyped for, but there are certain things stopping me from jumping up and down and getting all my cash cards ready for purchasing copies of the game en masse.

Just as a little backstory for those who aren't clued up on what this is.  Back in the days of the Gamecube there was a little title called Eternal Darkness, a fucking awesome horror game which had this gimmick of having inventive ways of fucking with the player.  It had an interesting plot and the ways of scaring you that went way beyond simple jump scare tactics and apart from maybe one section near the end, it was a ton of fun to play.

So Shadow of the Eternals is supposed to be a sort of sequel to that game, which sounds fucking awesome right?  Well there are some things that are worrying me a little bit.  The first of which is sort of a personal thing, I just don't like episodic gaming.  They are saying that Shadow of the Eternals is going to be released in what I think is 12 episodes, and I personally dislike this way of releasing the game.  When I get to the end of a game I want some form of closure on the story, not just a cliffhanger and the promise of a new episode to be released soon.

Of course this is just a personal thing and if the game does turn out to be really good I'll still pick it up, but maybe once all 12 parts are available at the same time.  The second thing that worries me though is the company that is developing the game.  Precursor Games is a company that, to my knowledge is made up entirely of staff from Silicon Knights, the guys who made Eternal Darkness.  This sounds good at first, right? They have given us some great titles in the past, Eternal Darkness and Twin Snakes just to name a couple.

But then think about the last two things they came out with.  Too Human, a game so bad it got pulled from existence or some shit, and X-Men Destiny, a game I've not played but heard that it's so fantastically fucking bad that it causes aneurysms in the players.  Now I don't know the 100% full stories behind those two games, but they goofed those titles pretty hard.  So if it's basically the same group of people developing this thing, I'm worried that they'll goof this one just as hard too.

Still, for the time being I'm excited and interested to see what gets put out.  Although my worries are holding me back from supporting the crowd funding effort, but I'll support the final product the best I can if it's good.

Stop Naming Games All Weird

This has been something that has annoyed me for some time, and since I was reminded of this issue by seeing the above game on Steam, I thought I'd moan about it for a while.

I've been quite fond of the Heroes of Might and Magic games for a long long time, me and a friend of mine would stay up to the wee hours of the morning doing hot seat games because that's how fucking sick this goddamn game was.  Now, notice the name of the 6th game in the series, it's no longer Heroes of Might and Magic, it's become Might and Magic Heroes 6.

Who the ever loving fuck decided to do that?! But more importantly WHY the fuck did you go and do that!?  It's a minor thing, it's not like I hate the game because of this but it just boggles my fucking mind why suddenly you go and start rearranging the name on me like that.

You have called it Heroes of Might and Magic for 5 games and a fuckton of expansions and NOW you go and change it around?  For what purpose?  Someone please explain this shit to me.

But at least all the components of the title are there and there is a big fat 6 on the end so you know which one it is.  What I hate worse is the naming of all these fucking reboots that are popping up.

Let's take Tomb Raider as an example.  Tomb Raider is a game from 1996 and is probably most well known for Lara Croft's triangular titties.  So 2013 rolls around and they reboot the series and decide to call the new game fucking Tomb Raider.  So now when I want to talk about Tomb Raider I have to make it clear which one I'm fucking talking about because the first game and the latest game now share the same goddamn title!  Why do that!?  Can't you put a number on the end? or a subtitle?! Can't you just call it fucking Tomb Raider: Gaiden or Tomb Raider: Origins or some shit?

This whole rant reminds me of that Angry Video Game Nerd video where he talks about shit naming.  Go look up Chronologically Confused to go watch him rant about games and films with fucking stupid sequel names.

The absolute worst offender is fucking Devil May Cry with that stupid "DmC: Devil May Cry" title.  Literally the worst name for a game I have ever seen.  You don't see me calling this blog iG: Identity Gaming, fucking idiots.

To cut a long post short, make game titles clearer so we know which one in the series it is, goddamnit!

Don't Buy Metro: Last Light

Typing that title hurt, goddamnit.

Now before people start losing their shit and calling me a hater, because I do hate a lot of things, but Metro is not one of them.

Metro 2033 was one of those games I bought on Steam during a sale because I had some extra dosh sitting in my bank account and upon firing it up had absolutely zero expectations.  What I got was a slightly frustrating but all round awesome shooter, way different from most of the military CoD crap that I had long since got bored of at the time.

So when I heard about Last Light I was super hyped up and ready to throw my money at 4A Games in a fit of joy.  But then something went very, VERY wrong.  Once again, greed has come into play and has completely soured my attitude to this title.

Most people know what's up by now, but for those that don't a whole mode got removed from the game so it could feature as preorder DLC.  I wish I was fucking joking.  What's even worse is that it's the Ranger Mode that got removed, which was the whole reason I enjoyed the original Metro so fucking much.

What pisses me off about the whole thing is that I heard somewhere that the reason they did this is because they were being pressured by retailers to make preorder DLC available to push sales.  Well let's look at what preorder bonuses are being offered alongside the ranger mode.  An exclusive gun, 100 military grade bullets (game currency) and a digital comic.

THAT'S NOT ENOUGH?!  Let's make clear what is actually going on here.  Greed! Flat out, fucking low down, money grubbing, shitlicking greed.  They fucking knew how much fans of the original enjoyed ranger mode, so now their punishing consumers by fucking charging for it.

Oh yeah, you can still get it if you don't preorder but it'll cost you an extra $5 or £3 or whatever.  Fucking dogshit, especially out of a niche game like this and a no name developer.

So here's the deal, DON'T BUY LAST LIGHT! DON'T FUCKING DO IT!!  But if, like me, you want to play the game, just wait a while.  Eventually there will be a steam sale or the price will drop, buy it then.  Getting the game at a reduced price means that paying the extra for the ranger mode won't matter.  Vote with you're wallet! If you pre order the game or buy that DLC, you are sending a message to the developers and the publishers saying that this shit is OK, and it's fucking not.

There are plenty of other great games available on steam, for a cheaper price that you could have a crack at while you wait for this to go on sale.  Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if you had a few games in your backlogs to be getting through while you wait for Last Light.  So just chill out for a while and save a few bucks, let's not have this practice creeping into more and more games.

Visual Novels! Not Games, Still Fun

I think a lot of gaming enthusiasts are aware of these but I doubt many pay much attention to them since they can just go play proper games instead of spending 5 hours glued to a screen reading.

That said, the whole visual novel thing is something I've been trying to get into for a while now as I've been told there do exist really good ones.  You see, my view on visual novels is a little skewed since all I ever see from the genre on store shelves for the PS3/PSP are stupid, semi dating sim love stories set in high schools.  Either that, or stupid shit like Milky Holmes which looks so insufferably annoying I couldn't bare to sit down and translate the damn thing.

So I've been making careful picks and I'm actually quite impressed with the results I've had so far.  I've played 2 in Japanese and 2 in English and I've enjoyed them enough to be arsed to seek out more.  The two English visual novels that I played were 999 and Lux-Pain both on the DS.  999 is pretty well known for it's quality and Lux-Pain, while having a terrible English translation still had quite an interesting premise.  The two Japanese games that I've had a crack at are Silent Hill: Play Novel and Kamaitachi no Yoru which are both extremely interesting if a little difficult for me sometimes,  Mainly due to lack of Kanji ability

I've also heard good things about Dunamis 15 and Steins Gate which are titles I really want to try.  The problem is that if you want to play the really good ones then quite a good command of the Japanese language is required.

I want to go into more detail about these games in individual posts but the game play across the board is basically the same.  You have a story with choose your own adventure style choices at certain points along with minor puzzling so that you're really not just reading a book on your PSP or DS.

So to anyone who may dismiss the VN because of it's lack of game elements, I'd urge you to give them a try.  The good ones are actually really interesting and I would easily recommend 999 to anyone as it's one of the best ones with an English version.

Watch this space for more detailed articles on individual titles.

I'm not dead!

This is just a place holder post to let the world know I've not just dropped off the face of the earth.

It's been a super hectic weekend with people coming to visit me and me going to visit people and I've barely had any time at home.  There are a lot of new things coming though so watch this space.

YouTube Paid Channels

I found out today that there are now channels on YouTube that you must pay a monthly subscription to in order to view.  Wow, what a load of fucking shit!

OK, I'm being a bit harsh, I do see the point of it here.  It allows creators of content to get something back for the work their putting in.  Not that they weren't getting it already with the whole YouTube monetisation thing, but this just gives them more options or some shit I guess.

Right now I don't give a flying fuck really because all the channels that are pay2view are a load of shit anyway.  But I hope people with gaming channels are aware of the fact that not ONE FUCKING PERSON with any kind of common sense would pay a fucking penny to watch shit like playthroughs and reviews.

I mean think about it, if someone like IGN went and put a subscription on their channel, people would just fuck off somewhere else for content.  If some Let's Player goes and does the same thing, people will just fuck of to another guy who didn't.  Even more so with playthroughs because why pay a monthly fee to view them when you could just buy the game yourself and fucking play it.

I know full well my nobody status on YouTube but rest assured that if I ever did somehow get to the point where subscription content would be an option, I would tell YT to go shove it up it's own arse.  If people are going to pay money for anything I create, I'd rather they direct it at the Alzheimer's Society than me, I can just get a fucking job!

Speaking of which, don't forget to throw a donation to the Society, that disease ain't going to cure itself!

www.justgiving.com/identitygaming

(Please forgive my shameless begging for charity donations, I won't do it often)

Sick of this shit

I can't go one fucking day, ONE FUCKING DAY without having to hear some politically correct social justice bullshit being spouted by some wanker on the internet.  I shouldn't have to rant about this stuff this many fucking times, goddamnit.

So what's the story?  The story is that Kotaku writer Patricia Hernandez is fucking at it again with her bullshit.  I already fucking hate Kotaku enough as it is, and if you want the article just google Blood Dragon gay joke and it'll pop up, but I'm not linking that shit.

Anyway, at the start of the game there is an exchange between two characters where one of them implies that his buddy likes to be with men in a romantic way in order to shut the dude up since he keeps mouthing off about his own perfection.  Apparently, calling someone gay is now really really harmful!  You might hurt someones feelings with that shit and then they'll be all sad....

FUCK. OFF.  No seriously, just get fucked.

Back in my school days people would call each other gay all the fucking time but that doesn't mean any of us are homophobic.  It's the same with this fucking game, just because one guy implied the other was gay doesn't mean that the writer or the entire development team are a bunch of gay hating macho men, it was just a joke.

I bet I could quiz a bunch of gay people on this section of the dialogue in this game and I would bet money on not a single one being offended and I'd be willing to bet quite a large sum.  If you are seriously offended by this kind of shit you need to step back and seriously reconsider your own life because something has gone horribly wrong.

There really should have been only two reactions to that line which are "Heh, he got told" or "That wasn't funny".  Not flying off the handle writing a huge article on the potential damage it could have done to the gay community.  What's even worse is that she even had an interview with the developer and writes the article in such a way that makes him sound like he's a gay hating ass hole who's trying to justify his in game hate-talk.  Not true and Patricia Hernandez is a fucking talentless hack.

Dean Evans is not homophobic.  This game is not homophobic.  Patricia Hernandez IS a fucking talentless loser just trying to stir up controversy because otherwise she'll have nothing of substance to write about.  Try seeing something ACTUALLY offensive and then realise how one little shit joke isn't really anything to dwell on. 

No more social justice bullshit, just let me enjoy fucking video games.

Patapon

You know it saddens me that games like Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 get all the praise it gets when it's just another bland military shooter, and then games like Patapon barely get any attention at all because it's got cute characters and gameplay that doesn't involve shooting things in the face....

My bitterness aside, Patapon is a game on the PSP that I've been playing recently that is sort of hard to put into one genre.  It's kind of a strategy game, kind of an action game and kind of a rhythm game all at the same time.
So the deal is that you are an drum playing God known to the Patapons as "Almighty", and using your drums you must guide your Patapon army to a place called Earthend so they can go and visit a thing called IT.  The Patapons pilgrimage to see IT is sort of their entire purpose in life, but there is a rival clan called the Zigatons who have their own prophecy that involves stopping you no matter what.

It's a cool plot and considering I've not managed to beat the game yet I'm genuinely curious as to see if the Zigatons were at all justified in trying to wipe me out.

So the game play involves playing drums in rhythm to assign actions to your Patapon army.  For example "Pata pata pata pon" (square square square circle) will make your army move foward on the 2D level.  Other combinations of pata, pon and chaka will do different thinks like attack, defend, charge up etc.  Between levels you are taken to a camp screen where you can change equipment, make new Patapons for your army or play rhythm mini games for bonus items.

It's a simple game but that doesn't meant it's easy because this game will fucking kick your ass sideways if you're not well prepared and cunning in battle.  If you think you can just advance and attack your way through the game you will be wiped out faster than the blink of one of your little dudes eyes.  This thing is hard and requires a great deal of preparation and planning before you can beat the later story missions, but when you do it the feeling of achievement is great.

So if you have a PSP and you have not played this, go fucking do it.  If you can't find this but you can get hold of Patapon 2 or 3, go play them as well.  I've not had much experience with the sequels but they can only get better really.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World

Damn, there is a big backlog of games that I beat but never talked about, so let's start at the top.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World is a game for the master system that involves punching things in the face and playing rock paper scissors.   There is some minuscule plot about saving something or other but I was getting so frustrated with the later levels that I forgot it.

It's sort of hard to say stuff about Alex Kidd, I mean it's a good game but it's just a standard platform game.  It does this thing where you get items but barely any of them are useful outside of certain levels and you'll find that you spend most of the game just punching things in the face.  Also I find the rock paper scissors thing really annoying because the first two throws for each boss are always the same, but you'll never know what they are first time (obviously) and the only way to find out is to play it over and over.  Nothing game breaking but just little irritating things but the game itself is a ton of fun, so playing it over to learn the RPS patterns isn't all that big of a deal.

A cool little fact about this game is that it came packaged with the Master System, but you never got a cart for it, it came built into the system.  By turning on your Master System with no cart this thing would boot up.  Free, convenient and a lot of fun, worth playing if you want some retro goodness in your life.

Let's Talk Sonic

13th December 1993 was the day I first received a Sega Mega Drive (Genesis if you're American and wrong) with a copy of The Lion King from my parents.  On the 25th December of that year I got Sonic 1 and 2 as presents, that was a good day.

At the age of 4 I was fucking enthralled with these video games and thanks to Sonic and The Lion King I am now the game loving lunatic who writes crap articles on a blog you are seeing today.  Sonic was fucking great back then and he was a big deal too.  There was all sorts of sonic related shit like merchandise, comics, TV shows and the list goes on.

But something went wrong, arguably around 2006 when he got a game on the Xbox 360.  Ever since that fucking game the Sonic franchise has been in the absolute shitter, and the only game that has come close to delivering a good sonic experience is Sonic Generations.

What makes the whole situation really sad is that you could fix the whole Sonic thing on basically no money and it baffles my goddamn mind why they don't do this.  So, here they are, 2 points that would save Sonic the Hedgehog.

1) Get rid of the fucking friends

Sonic's friends are the fucking worst, I can't stress how bad these characters are.  I'll give you Sonic, Tails and Knuckles, they are fine but shit like Shadow, Amy, that fucking cat from Rush, Cream and every other strange creature just need to fuck off forever.  NO ONE with any kind of brain or taste like Sonic's friends.  The people who do like this group of stupid arseholes are the kind of people that do weird fan art on the internet and do character cosplay to go fucking shopping.  They need help, not games designed for them

2) Just make it 2D; the more Mega Drive-like the better

Part of the problem with modern Sonic is the whole 3D thing.  I mean it was OK in Adventure 1 and 2 but for the most part, playing Sonic in 3D is fucking arse.  Trying to control a character who moves at that speed is basically impossible and I think this fact just has to be accepted.  So I said before that you can make a good Sonic game for no money, here is now!  Simply take the engine used for Sonic 2 or 3, get some level designer who knows what he/she is doing to get a bunch of shit together, get a decent musician to bash out some catchy 16 bit tunes, release it on PC under steam or some shit and BAM! Sonic might not be terrible anymore.

Megaman went and released fucking TWO 8-bit games on the PS3/360 and they did pretty damn well.  Why are you clinging to this fucking 3D garbage when no one wants it.  I don't care that you have designs for Cullus the Dung Beetle or some shit ready to go, throw that shit in a fire and go make a 16 bit Sonic game so that you remember how to fucking do it.

Then mail me 50% of your profits. You're fucking welcome.

How Scary Is Outlast? Not very

Outlast is a game I've mentioned a few times on this blog.

First I said that it was worth looking out for, then I said that while some of my hype had been dashed I was still looking forward to it, and now it's just another one of those games in the back of my mind that I'll probably get on the cheap about a year after it's release date.

I saw this video on YouTube put out by IGN called "How Scary is Outlast?" here it is

This is a silly video where a bunch of people play the game and over react to bad scares like they are 12 years old.

The game itself looks pretty solid technically speaking.  The demo that they were playing ran smoothly and it didn't bug out or anything like that.  Also the game doesn't seem to have that DreadOut problem of the character having a move speed no faster than a frail old person with broken legs.

But I'm not talking about the game from a technical standpoint, I'm not here to discuss fucking graphics, frame rate and shit like that, I'm here to talk about scares, and this is where this whole thing really falls flat on its fucking face.

If you are scared by this game, you need to seek help.  Now I'm not saying I'm some big manly man but this game isn't scaring you at any point, it's only shocking you.  All the gore and bodies and shit like that is really in your face and it's the same kind of "scary" that a movie like Saw is.  Also when the game does attempt a scare it plays a huge bang and fucking loud violins go off in the background here, the soundtrack is TELLING you to be scared and instead it has the opposite effects.

When you hear huge bangs and shit like that you aren't scared, you're shocked and the effect wares off immediately after.  What's worse is that jump scares seems to be the only thing this game has, so it becomes even less scary because I know when I play the game I'm just going to be looking for points where a jump scare is probably going to come out.

Also the big dude running around and grabbing you isn't scary because he's just a fucking dude with a strange face.  Even the Amnesia monster was scarier than that because even though it was just a humanoid type thing at least it looked sort of fucked up and you could only ever get a passing glance at it.  But no, here, it's just a big burly man trying to beat the shit out of you, WHOOP DE FUCKING DOO.  Plenty of games have big burly men beating the shit out of you, and they aren't scary, it's not just magically scary here because you put the burly man in a long corridor and surrounded him in gore.

Outlast has disappointed me before it has even come out.  Way to go Red Barrels, you proved that you know absolutely nothing about making horror games.  I'll be sure to give it a go still, but the rant about your incompetency is going to get really long when that day comes.

Video Game Addiction A.K.A Bad Parenting

 

Look at that fucking thing, look at it, what a load of bullshit

Is this seriously how people think? I don't want to believe that there are people on this planet who are this stupid and create something like that.  I mean there is a big problem right at the fucking start of that damn thing where it's comparing video games to fucking hardcore drugs, but the worst part about that whole thing is the requirement to be considered an "addict"

Fucking 10 hours per week?!  I made a status on facebook about this and a friend responded "I play double that, minimum" and he's not wasting his life away or anything like that, he's part of the large number of people I know who are working out here in Japan.  Last night alone I clocked around 7 or 8 hours of game time because it's my fucking holiday and I'm not going to have some pricks judge me based on the fact I like to enjoy some interactive entertainment in my free time.

Why don't these people just face up to facts here.  Games don't generate addicts, shit parents do.  If your child or teenager is spending enough time on the computer to the point where it's affecting their life in a bad way, that's YOUR fault as a parent for not doing your fucking job and stepping in and putting them on the right track.  But of course, parents these days don't want to do their fucking jobs as parents so they will just happily kick back and blame things while doing NOTHING for their kids.

Game Addiction may be a thing, but it's not the huge problem you make it out to be.  If you are the kind of person who complains about this shit, get fucked and give your child to someone who might actually take care of it.  You're incompetency should not reflect badly on my hobby, piss off.

I'm seriously hoping that the above image was made as a troll just to piss me off, but even if it is there are still people who are alive right now who believe shit like that, and that's just bad.

No one knows how to do horror anymore

I mentioned a long time ago that the Survival Horror genre was pretty much dead.  In that post I called the developers of Silent Hill: Homecoming a bunch of knobs who had no idea what they were doing.  Well right now I'm going to expand on that by pointing out exactly just how fucking useless today's developers are when it comes to delivering scares.

So, I'm going to take 4 scares (2 from Silent Hill, 1 from Resident Evil and 1 from Dead Space) put them side by side and explain why games from over 10 years ago were better at delivering fear than modern games despite all the fancy graphics and processing power.

SCARE #1! SILENT HILL 2 BATHROOM FREAKYNESS!

So in Silent Hill two there is a point where you have to walk around a prison.  This prison is already a pretty terrible place with strange noises and some...thing...muttering the word "ritual" at you as you walk through cells, but it's one of the bathrooms that will really shit you up.

So you walk into this bathroom and there is nothing in it, at least nothing of importance that I remember.  While here you can make James check the doors of each stall by knocking on them.  Knocking on the doors yields no response and you can't get inside, but things start to get super weird when you start to leave.  Just before you make it to the exit, you hear a sound as if someone fell over accompanied by a woman's yelp.  Now I use the word yelp instead of scream because this isn't a jump scare.  The sound of the crash or the scream isn't loud enough to make you jump, but it sure as fuck creeps you the fuck out.  The strangest part of the whole thing is that if you go back, nothing has changed at all and it doesn't change anything in the level, it is there PURELY to fuck with you and it does a damn good job.

SCARE #2! SILENT HILL: HOMECOMING BATHROOM BULLSHIT!

So Silent Hill games are pretty famous for having freaky bathrooms, but Homecoming shows just how the developer had no fucking clue.  The bathroom is the place you get to meet your first enemy in homecoming, but there is no tension built up here at all.  You pull a knife from a wall and a movie nurse walks out of the only "locked" stall to act as your tutorial fight.  As soon as you check the door and see the knife in the wall you can pretty much see how the whole situation is going to go.  Also bathrooms in homecoming from what I remember tend to have a dead body in them, or at least at the start they do. 

What makes the SH2 scare so much better than the Homecoming scare is that your mind is filling in the blanks.  You just ASSUME something terrible went on in that prison stall but the game doesn't actually show you anything at all.  The sound it makes isn't even that bad when you think about it, it's the kind of sound you might hear if someone slipped and banged against the door, but because of the way the game messes with your head you are just assuming that something terrible is going on.  Homecoming on the other hand does the opposite of this and just shows you death and blood everywhere so when you see a dead body for the millionth time you end up just ignoring it because it's nothing more than set dressing for the level.

SCARE #3! RESIDENT EVIL HUNTERS

The Hunter is Resident Evil is a stroke of fucking genius.  Not because it's a particularly good monster or anything like that, but because of the way it is introduced to the player.  First off, the entirety of Resident Evil up to the point with the Hunters you are fighting stuff like zombies, dogs, crows and shit like that.  Dead people or animals that have been infected by the T-Virus.  I think before the Hunters you have to fight Yawn, but even he isn't so bad because 1) It's still just an animal and 2) He isn't very hard to fight, and his venom can be counteracted with shit lying around the house.

The Hunter on the other hand is somethin' else.  You don't even see it when it first turns up, you just get a first person cutscene of it running into the main house and straight away you know something is fucked up.  Then it scares you even more by actually showing up and being stronger and faster than anything else.  You can just evade it like a zombie, and it's not easily killed like the dogs, these things will make you panic while you try to figure out what the fuck is happening and them BAM! off goes your head in one swipe, enjoy loading your game to try again shitlord.

SCARE #4! DEAD SPACE ANYTHING

None of the monsters in these games are scary, not a single one.  Enemies tend to just jump out at you and scream and are easily killed in a couple of shots from pretty much anything.  Bosses are even less scary because most come with giant "fuck me" lights, and the ones that lack "fuck me" lights have pretty blatant weaknesses.  The enemy design in this game is weak and they are not scary nor do they make you panic.  It doesn't matter if one sneaks up on you or they attack in groups because you always be able to deal with them no matter what guns you have.

In the case of Resident Evil, I might not be carrying the Shotgun or the Grenade Launcher.  So when the Hunter appears to take chunks out of my dopey arse, getting out of that situation with just a pistol is a real shit sucker.  Then again in Dead Space, if I had that piece of shit machine gun, it still didn't really matter because it would get the job done well enough.  Also I didn't feel the need to conserve ammo because it would drop so fucking frequently and I was playing that shit on hard mode.

To sum it all up and to sort of repeat myself from the survival horror post I made in the summer.  Stop making shit like Dead Space, Homecoming or whatever other arsehole "horror" games exist at the moment, go study the good ones and come back.  It's been far too long and I'm getting sick of it